Cal Newport

not to do cardiovascular exercise after the age of 40 because they thought this would avoid heart attacks.

And women were told essentially avoid breaking a sweat altogether if possible.

Now, the person perhaps most responsible for changing our understanding of exercise was Dr. Kenneth Cooper, who was a former Air Force doctor who in 1968 published a groundbreaking book called Aerobics,

which made the case that cardiovascular activity is not a heart attack machine, but actually a way to make your heart and body healthier and you'll live longer.

And not only should you do some cardiovascular activity, you should probably do a lot.

I recently read Cooper's memoir.

We talked about it here on the show.

And he talks about how when that book first came out, fellow doctors thought that his advice was deranged and dangerous.

One of them actually said the streets will soon be filled with

with the corpses of dead joggers because advising middle-aged men to go running was going to cause deaths left and right.

Well, of course, Cooper was right and they were wrong.

We now know cardiovascular exercise, of course, is healthy for you.

Anyways, if we go back and read Cooper's early work,

Here's what's interesting to me, how he advised people how to get enough cardiovascular activity.

A lot of people have forgotten this about his work, but it's really interesting.

He introduced back in the 60s and updated it throughout the years, a point system.

He got lots of different activities and assigned them points.

These would be like appendixes in the back of his books, even to today.

And then he gave you a goal.

30 points a week.